VIII. A Roadmap to Credible, Free and Fair Elections Reforms to level the political playing field have security sector reform at their core, which should be complemented by additional, urgent electoral reforms. For Zimbabwe to create a human rights respecting environment conducive for the holding of credible, free and fair elections that comply with SADC Principles and Guidelines on the Conduct of Democratic Elections, the issues below should be addressed in its elections roadmap.86 Crucial outstanding electoral reforms include reforms to a Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) whose secretariat staff has been dominated by state intelligence and military officials. While ZEC has new commissioners, the secretariat staff is largely the same pro ZANU-PF team that worked for previous commissions. Several senior ZEC staff are either serving or retired members of the security forces drawn from the CIO, the army, and the police.87 ZANUPF continues to resist calls by civil society and the MDC factions for an independent audit of ZEC staff followed by a fresh recruitment of professional, independent, and non-partisan personnel. This is an outstanding issue in talks brokered by South Africa as part of SADC mediation, but ZANU-PF has rejected any changes to ZEC personnel. The power-sharing government has made little progress in updating the outdated voters’ roll that has a significant number of “ghost” voters coupled with a highly partisan voter registration process under which ZANU-PF supporters easily registered to vote while those perceived to be MDC supporters found it difficult to do so. The voters roll, which should have been put under the exclusive control of ZEC, remains under the control of the registrar general, Tobaiwa Mudede, who within the Home Affairs Ministry is responsible for the registration of births, deaths, citizenship, and voters. Mudede has been responsible for the voters’ roll in previous elections, despite having publicly aligning himself with ZANUPF.88 Related to that, the MDC and civil society groups have often been prevented from 86 Human Rights Watch has addressed these issues in earlier reports, namely Race Against Time: The Need for Legal and Institutional Reforms Ahead of Zimbabwe’s Elections, ISBN: 1-56432-974-7, January 2013, http://www.hrw.org/reports/2013/01/10/race-against-time; and False Dawn: The Zimbabwe Power-Sharing Government’s Failure to Deliver Human Rights Improvements, August 2009, http://www.hrw.org/reports/2009/08/31/false-dawn. 87 Human Rights Watch, Race Against Time: The Need for Legal and Institutional Reforms Ahead of Zimbabwe’s Elections, ISBN: 1-56432-974-7, January 2013, http://www.hrw.org/reports/2013/01/10/race-against-time. For instance, the current ZEC Chief Elections Officer, Lovemore Sekeramayi, is a former member of the President’s Office. 88 When local elections monitoring group, Zimbabwe Election Support Network (ZESN) noted a number of irregularities on the voters’ roll in October 2012, Registrar General Mudede’s response was, “the voters’ roll is perfect,” SW Radio Africa, http://www.swradioafrica.com/2012/03/08/registrar-general-tobaiwa-mudede-exposed/ (accessed April 24, 2013). 35 HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH │ MAY 2013